#abolish DEI

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Tabia Lee

Published: Oct 18, 2023

The blatant antisemitism on college campuses has shocked millions of Americans over the past week and a half.

But not me.

I saw antisemitism on a weekly basis in my two years as a faculty “diversity, equity and inclusion” director.

In fact, I can safely say that toxic DEI ideology deliberately stokes hatred toward Israel and the Jewish people.

I was hired to head the DEI department at Silicon Valley’s De Anza College in 2021.

As a black woman, I was the perfect person for the job — on paper.

Yet I made the mistake of trying to create an authentically inclusive learning environment for everyone, including Jewish students.

Turns out, a toxic form of DEI (which is more accurately called “critical social justice”) demanded I do the opposite.

Before I got to campus, Jewish students had endured a litany of hateful and hostile acts.

The school had hosted a Hanukkah party that featured no Hanukkah imagery but plenty of pro-Palestinian protesters.

The student body had passed resolutions on “divesting” from Israel —  the first college of its kind to do so — and criticizing Israel’s “attacks against humanity.”

Multiple Jewish students told me the campus was essentially an antisemitic environment.

I tried to right this wrong. First, I hosted Jewish speakers on campus, with the goal of promoting diversity and inclusion by sharing different perspectives.

Critics called me a “dirty Zionist,” and the school refused to promote the events.

I then pushed the administration to issue a strong condemnation of antisemitism.

My request was refused. Some campus leaders and colleagues repeatedly told me I shouldn’t raise issues about Jewish inclusion or antisemitism.

I was told in no uncertain terms that Jews are “white oppressors” and our job as faculty and staff members was to “decenter whiteness.”

I was astounded, but I shouldn’t have been.

At its worst, DEI is built on the unshakable belief that the world is divided into two groups of people: the oppressors and the oppressed.

Jews are categorically placed in the oppressor category, while Israel is branded a “genocidal, settler, colonialist state.”

In this worldview, criticizing Israel and the Jewish people is not only acceptable but praiseworthy.

(Just as it’s OK to attack America and white people.)

If you don’t go after them — or worse, if you defend them — you’re actively abetting racist oppression.

I have never encountered a more hostile environment toward the members of any racial, ethnic or religious group.

I was ultimately fired by De Anza College, and I suspect my defense of Jewish students played a part.

Yet I’ve subsequently found that my experience isn’t unique.

Countless faculty and students on campuses nationwide have told me the DEI ideology encourages antisemitism.

One study found 96% of Israel-focused tweets by campus DEI staff criticized the Jewish state.

And that was before Hamas launched its brutal assault on Israel this month.

Now the colleges and universities beholden to DEI are hurting Jewish students with their silence, their moral equivocation about terrorism against Israel or their outright praise of the terrorists.

Many of the student groups most invested in DEI are actively siding with Hamas.

Look no further than “White Coats for Black Lives,” a national group of medical students with chapters in more than 100 public and private universities. 

On Tuesday, just days after Hamas murdered Jewish families in their beds, the DEI-driven group proudly declared it has “long supported Palestine’s struggle for liberation.” 

How could a Jewish patient ever trust a medical trainee or professional who subscribes to such blatant antisemitic hatred?

It’s tantamount to threatening their lives, and it raises questions about whether such hate-filled people should even be allowed to practice medicine.

This outpouring of antisemitic hatred is the direct result of DEI’s insistence that Jews are oppressors.

What started with rhetorical attacks has morphed into defending and calling for violent attacks.

It’s inevitable for an ideology that demeans an entire group of people while accusing them of perpetrating massive injustice.

When you stoke that kind of division and anger, you unleash fires you can’t control.

Sure enough, the fire of antisemitism is now burning bright on college campuses.

It needs to be extinguished immediately so it doesn’t spread and do more damage.

I know just the place to start.

Administrators and lawmakers need to get toxic DEI out of higher education.

If they don’t, there will be no true diversity and inclusion on campus, but there will be even more shocking hatred toward Jews.

Tabia Lee, EdD, is a senior fellow at Do No Harm. 

==

DEI needs to be abolished.

[sheisraging]

If you're considering not voting or casting a pointless 3rd party vote in the upcoming US elections*, I'd urge you to read about Project 2025, which is the Republican transition plan for if they win the 2024 election (link is for the wiki page, not the actual website).

A short summary:

Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Established in 2022, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants—whom Republicans characterize as part of the "deep state"—and to further the objectives of the next Republican president. It adopts a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory, a widely disputed interpretation of Article II of the Constitution of the United States, which asserts that the president has absolute power over the executive branch upon inauguration.

Among the many horrifying and notable points:

Abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be either transferred to other government agencies, or terminated. Basic research would only be funded if it suits conservative principles.

Promotes the ideal that the government should "maintain a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family."

Proposed recognition of only heterosexual men and women, the removal of protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender identity, and the elimination of provisions pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from federal legislation.

Individuals who have participated in DEI programs or any initiatives involving critical race theory might be fired.

Explicitly reject abortion as health care

Revive provisions of the Comstock Act of the 1870s that banned mail delivery of any "instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing" that could be used for an abortion.

Restrict access to contraception.

Infuse the government with elements of Christianity, and its contributors believe that "freedom is defined by God, not man."

Criminalizing pornography

Combat "affirmative discrimination" or "anti-white racism," citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and to direct the DOJ to pursue Donald Trump's adversaries by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807.

Recommend the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants across the country.

Promotes capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of such sentences.

Reform the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) so that the nuclear household structure is emphasized.

Give state governments the authority impose stricter work requirements for beneficiaries of Medicaid

Mandate that federal healthcare providers should deny gender-affirming care to transgender people

Eliminate insurance coverage of the morning-after-pill Ella (required by the Affordable Care Act of 2010).

Remove Medicare's ability to negotiate drug prices.

These are just a few things and I'm sure lots of people will be like lol this will never happen but lots of people said this about overturning Roe, as well.

*FWIW - I think it is absolutely valid to be angry, discouraged, and disappointed in our current administration.

Be mad at Biden! (though I would encourage looking into some of the actually positive things his administration has achieved).

But also consider what's at stake for a huge population of this country if we wind up with a GOP win.

[thewarfox]

DEI is racist.

I wrote this as a comment to a youtube video, but I am relatively certain that it will get shadowbanned. I'm pretty happy with the thoughts I wrote down, so I decided to bring them over here: The reason DEI has a negative inclination is the same reason that Affirmative Action has a negative inclination. Even if the person being hired is qualified, you cannot be certain they got the position because of their merits, or because of their 'diverse' qualities. Let's say that, hypothetically, you have two equally qualified candidates that have to be decided between. One has to be picked. The only difference between them is that one is a white man, and one is a black woman. Same age, same education, same records, everything else is equal. When you have a culture of DEI, you immediately run into a problem. If you DON'T hire the black woman, you risk being called a racist and a sexist. If you do hire her, you risk being accused of picking her for her immutable characteristics instead of for her qualifications. On the side of the hypothetical black woman, if you get picked for the job, you can't be completely certain that you were picked for your qualifications, or if you were picked for your God-given characteristics. On the side of the hypothetical white man, if you get picked for the job, you can't be completely certain that you were picked for your qualifications, or if you were picked because your employer is a racist or sexist. There are obviously other possibilities, but we're trying to narrow the thought experiment for simplicity. By utilizing DEI, you are putting discrimination on the table. You are stating that you have an agenda to shape your workplace based on categories that have nothing to do with qualifications. You are subjecting people hired under it to be insecure about the circumstances of their employment, and their true role in the organization. Are they there to do a job, or are they there to check off a box? Have they really earned the position, or are they being used to signal to outside observers? And finally, like any system humanity creates, people take advantage of it. Does it happen very often? Hopefully not. But it certainly does happen, however rarely. And the fear that the people you're hiring might be a grifter of some kind does poison the well. A rotten apple can spoil the bunch. It can breed distrust of potential selectees based off of the actions of a few bad actors. It opens the door for behaviors and worries and conflicts that don't need to exist. There are places where DEI has no place, and everything works fine. Take basketball for instance. You don't see anyone saying that a certain percentage of asian or white players need to be on every team to reflect the population. Any team that does such a thing will likely be at a competitive disadvantage to the teams that don't do it. They are composing the teams of the best players, and they happen to mostly be black, and no one has a problem with this. DEI didn't have to be implemented to get black people onto the teams, their own skill, ability, and effectiveness got them there. If they failed to get onto the teams because the rules forced them to hire other people for the team, how many black basketballers would not be able to get on the team when they otherwise would? In fact, one could say that DEI-like thinking kept black players out of basketball in the early days, and only when teams started taking risks by hiring them, and they started winning games more as a result, the inherent competitiveness of sport demanded that other teams had to hire black players as well if they didn't want to be left behind. It was only by abolishing a policy of composing a team by race that the sport was allowed to take its modern, superior shape. DEI is not a recipe for competitiveness. It is inherently anticapitalistic. It promotes unhealthy discrimination. It opens the door for ugly and unhealthy criticism. It calls into question the capabilities of people, and whether they are qualified for their positions.

[mimi-0007]

****†** EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BEFORE YOU VOTE. ****Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of policy proposals to thoroughly reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Established in 2022, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants—whom Republicans characterize as part of the "deep state"—and to further the objectives of the next Republican president. It adopts a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory—which asserts that the president has absolute power over the executive branch upon inauguration. Unitary executive theory is a disputed interpretation of Article II of the Constitution of the United States. Project 2025 envisions widespread changes across the entire government, particularly with regard to economic and social policies and the role of the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes slashing funding for the Department of Justice (DOJ), dismantling the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), sharply reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor of fossil fuel production, eliminating the Department of Commerce, and ending the independence of various federal agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The blueprint seeks to institute tax cuts, though its writers disagree on the wisdom of protectionism. .

Project 2025 recommends abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be either transferred to other government agencies, or terminated. Scientific research would receive federal funding only if it suits conservative principles. The Project urges the government to explicitly reject abortion as health care and to restrict access to contraception. The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank that leads the development of Project 2025, asserted in April 2024 that "the radical Left hates families" and "wants to eliminate the family and replace it with the state" while driving the country to emulate totalitarian nations, such as North Korea. The Project seeks to infuse the government with elements of Christianity, stating in its Mandate that "freedom is defined by God, not man." Project 2025 proposes criminalizing pornography, removing protections against discrimination based on sexual or gender identity, and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, as well as affirmative action. The Project advises the future president to immediately deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and to direct the DOJ to pursue Donald Trump's adversaries by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. It recommends the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants across the country. It promotes capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of such sentences. Project director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, explained that Project 2025 is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state." Dans admitted that it was "counterintuitive" to recruit so many people to join the government in order to shrink it, but pointed out the need for a future President to "regain control" of the federal government. Although the project does not promote a specific presidential candidate, many contributors have close ties to Donald Trump and his presidential campaign. The Heritage Foundation has developed Project 2025 in collaboration with over 100 partners including Turning Point USA, led by its executive director Charlie Kirk; the Conservative Partnership Institute including former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as senior partner; the Center for Renewing America, led by former Trump Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought; and America First Legal, led by former Trump Senior Advisor Stephen Miller. The Project is detailed in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, a version of which Heritage has written as transition plans for each prospective Republican president since 1980. Critics of Project 2025 have described it as an authoritarian Christian nationalist movement and a path for the United States to become an autocracy. Several experts in law have indicated that it would undermine the rule of law and the separation of powers. Some conservatives and Republicans also criticized the plan, for example in the contexts of centralizing power, climate change, and foreign trade.

[cartermagazine]

Today We Honor Oluale Kossola, Renamed Cudjo Lewis

Zora Neale Hurston tells the story of Cudjo Lewis, who was born Oluale Kossola in what is now the West African country of Benin in her book “Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.”

A member of the Yoruba people, he was only 19 years old when members of the neighboring Dahomian tribe invaded his village, captured him along with others, and marched them to the coast.

There, he and about 120 others were sold into slavery, after the “Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves" took effect in 1808 slavery was abolished, and crammed onto the Clotilda, the “last” slave ship to reach the continental United States.

The Clotilda brought its captives to Alabama in 1860, just a year before the outbreak of the Civil War. Even though slavery was legal at that time in the U.S., the international slave trade was not, and hadn’t been for over 50 years. Along with many European nations, the U.S. had outlawed the practice in 1808.

After being abducted from his home, Lewis was forced onto a ship with strangers. The abductees spent several months together during the treacherous passage to the United States, but were then separated in Alabama to go to different owners.

“We very sorry to be parted from one ’nother,” Lewis told Hurston. “We seventy days cross de water from de Affica soil, and now dey part us from one ’nother.”

“Derefore we cry. Our grief so heavy look lak we cain stand it. I think maybe I die in my sleep when I dream about my mama.”

“We doan know why we be bring ’way from our country to work lak dis,” he told Hurston. “Everybody lookee at us strange. We want to talk wid de udder colored folkses but dey doan know whut we say.”

Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered in April 1865, Lewis says that a group of Union soldiers stopped by a boat on which he and other enslaved people were working and told them they were free.

He and a group of 31 other freepeople saved up money to buy land near Mobile, which they called Africatown.

CARTER™️ Magazine

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rebecca Crosby at Popular Information:

Major corporations, including Mastercard, Meta, and Coca-Cola, are quietly sponsoring a Canadian conference headlined by Christopher Rufo, a far-right activist and crusader against diversity initiatives. Many of these same companies, however, champion diversity in their public communications.  Rufo is listed as a featured speaker for the Canada Strong and Free Regional Networking Conference 2024, which will be held in Alberta, Canada on September 21. The event, which was first highlighted by DeSmog, is billed as an “enriching exploration of conservatism in Canada.” On X, the organization promoted the event using a photo of Rufo with the text, “Fighting the left and wokism.” 

Rufo has been credited with creating the hysteria around Critical Race Theory (CRT) in educational settings. In 2020, Rufo appeared on Tucker Carlson’s former show on Fox News and called on Trump to end CRT training. Within days, the Trump administration released a memo outlining a ban on diversity training in the government, and Trump issued the executive order shortly after.

When it became clear that CRT is a complex legal theory that is not taught in K-12 schools, Rufo shifted his attention to lambasting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Rufo appeared with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) as DeSantis signed the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which limits workplace conversations about diversity and race. (That aspect of the law has been enjoined by a federal court as unconstitutional.) Rufo has also been a leader in the crusade to ban discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools. On X, Rufo insinuated that people were attempting to indoctrinate pre-kindergarten students with information about “gender transitioning, exotic pronouns, and simplified Queer Theory.” Rufo has also said that “parents have good reason” to be concerned about “‘grooming’ in public schools.” 

In 2023, Rufo was appointed by DeSantis to the board of trustees at the New College of Florida as part of a right-wing takeover of the liberal arts college. In his newsletter, Rufo bragged that New College was “the first public university in America to begin rolling back the encroachment of gender ideology and queer theory on its academic offerings.” In an interview with the New York Times, Rufo said that New College previously enrolled too many women, which turned it into “a social justice ghetto.” On X, in response to pictures of dozens of books at the college being thrown away, Rufo said, “We abolished the gender studies program. Now we’re throwing out the trash.”  Companies who claim to support diversity are sponsoring the upcoming event promoting Rufo and his ideological agenda. Mastercard, for example, prides itself on being one of the leaders for DEI initiatives among major corporations. Mastercard’s website states that “[d]iversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are what set Mastercard apart by making us more adaptable, more innovative and more creative.” Mastercard says that DEI “makes us better” and is “part of our core values and underpins everything we do.” 

Why are major corporations sponsoring an “anti-woke” conference in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada featuring right-wing paranoiac Christopher Rufo.

Rufo helped foment the manufactured crusade against “CRT” in K-12 schools, LGBTQ+ inclusion policies, and DEI in businesses.

[its-suanneschafer-author]

Continuing my review and summarizing of Project 2025, the GOP 2024 platform, and Trump’s Agenda 47.

1) Trump denies knowledge of Project 2025, a radical conservative Christian manifesto, yet many of his present and former advisors wrote the 900 page document which is a blueprint for the new GOP president starting from day one with massive, sweeping actions that will not only paralyze the government but will ensure chaos for years to come. It is the most detailed look at a future Trump presidency. Trump’s name is mentioned 268 times in the document, so it was certainly written with him in mind. Trump instituted 64% of the policy recommendations that were put out in the 2016 conservative mandate, a blueprint for the Trump administration and which was as right-wing and conservative as the current Project 2025.

2) Agenda 47 collects formal policies Trump plans to put into effect, many of which rely on executive orders and significant expansion of his executive powers. In 2023, Trump campaign officials stated that Project 2025 aligns well with Agenda 47.

These policies include:

A) restriction of Chinese ownership of US infrastructure

B) End the “Biden war” on US energy by eliminating every regulation that hampers domestic production, getting out of the Paris Agreement, and giving fast approval to every oil infrastructure project that comes before his administration 

C) Baseline tariffs on most foreign goods, revoking Chinese Most Favored Nation trade status

D) Decrease trade deficits

E) Not bailing out failing banks, slashing regulations, and repealing Biden’s tax hikes to reduce inflation

F) The Trump Reciprocal Trade Act will tariff other countries’ imports at the same rate they tariff our exports. NB: The costs of these tariffs will be passed on to consumers and will cause more harm than good

G) Gut Biden’s Green New Deal policies and electric cars initiative, and terminate all emission regulations on cars, fossil fuels, etc

H) Dept of Education

1—Cut federal funding for any school or program teaching critical race theory or gender ideology by removing the radicals who have infiltrated the Dept of Education. 

2—Keep men out of women’s sports. 

3—Create a new way to certify teachers based on their patriotism and give preferential treatment to schools that abolish teacher tenure, abolish DEI, and adopt direct election of school principals by parents. 

4—Pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that engage in “equity” by taxing up to the entire amount of their endowment

5—Restore parental rights to control their child’s education; allow parents to hire and fire principals and teachers.

6—Bring back school prayer NB: This includes reading the Bible but doesn’t include any teachings of other religions

7—Allow teachers to carry concealed weapons at school 

8—Immediate expulsion and sentencing to reform school of any student who harms another student or a teacher or use or possession of drugs at school

9—The US government will issue bachelor’s degrees to those who did not finish their degrees by creating a new educational institution aimed at competing with schools already in existence. NB: This is from the man who owes fines from the failure of his own for-profit college.

I) Reinterpret presidential powers so that he has greater control of the government in the White House

(the unitary executive theory).

1—Dismantle the “deep state” and revamp every aspect of the US government. NB: These policies could upset the balance of power between the three branches of the federal government and provoke a constitutional showdown by usurping congressional authority and cutting out any program he doesn’t like or whose proponents have angered him. This is a fascist plan

2—Prevent World War III and end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. NB: The fact that he has buddied up to Putin makes this highly unlikely.

3—Overhaul the entire US defense and intelligence bureaucracies

4—Ask Europe to refund the money we spend to rebuild the stockpiles we sent to Ukraine. NB: Good luck with that

J) Keep Medicare and Social Security intact. NB: Every single congressional Republican—and 43 Senate Republicans—sided with Big Pharma over the American people and blocked an amendment that would cap out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 for millions of Americans on private insurance. Thus, Big Pharma and the rich get richer at the cost of the health and lives of the poor. In March 2024, the Republican Study committee which represents 100% of House Republican leadership and 80% of their members proposed yet another budget that would cut the following by $4.5 trillion over 1-0 years: Medicare (transition Medicare to a premium support system that would raise premiums for many seniors), Social Security ($1.5 trillion in cuts) , the Affordable Care Act, the Children’s Health Insurance Initiative and increase prescription drugs (removing $35 insulin), energy and housing costs while raising the retirements age plus forcing $5.5. trillion in tax cuts for the very rich.

K) Immigration policy

1—Ban birthright citizenship 

2—End welfare for illegal immigants

3—Massive deportation of immigrants

L) Inflation

1—Build “Freedom Cities” on undeveloped federal land to lower cost of buying a home

2—Build vertical takeoff and landing vehicles

M) Shatter the left-wing censorship regime

L) Law enforcement

1—Increase investment in police personnel, stop illegal drugs

2—Death penalty for drug dealers and human traffickers

3—Overhaul federal standards on disciplining minors

4—Concealed carry reciprocity

M) DEI

1—Abandon DEI, terminate any offices, staff, and initiatives connected to DEI

2—Focus on anti-white racism rather than discrimination against people of color

N) Transgender and LBGQI+ rights: Terminate all gender affirming care at any age and terminating federal funding for any hospital or healthcare provider that participates in it

[fashionlandscapeblog]

all the shit you say will happen under trump is already happening under biden... and will STILL happen if biden gets elected...

Very true, but where you go wrong is in assuming it won't get MUCH worse under a new Trump presidential term. Ever heard of project 2025?

Project 2025 recommends abolishing the Department of Education

Funding for climate research would be cut

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be reformed according to conservative principles.

Cut funding for Medicare and Medicaid and urges the government to explicitly reject abortion as health care.

The Project states that life begins at conception and seeks to eliminate coverage of emergency contraception under the Affordable Care Act and enforce the Comstock Act to prosecute those who send and receive contraceptives and abortion pills nationwide.

The Project seeks to infuse the government with elements of Christianity.

Remove legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity

Terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and affirmative actionby having the DOJ prosecute "anti-white racism."

The Project recommends the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. by using the military to capture and place them in internment camps.

The Insurrection Act of 1807 would be used to allow the military to engage in domestic policing and capturing undocumented immigrants.

[bloopington-indiana]

Project 2025, also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, is a political initiative published by the Heritage Foundation that aims to promote conservative and right-wing policies to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. The Project asserts a controversial interpretation of the unitary executive theory, according to which the entire executive branch is under the complete control of the president. It proposes reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers as political appointees in order to replace them with people loyal to the president. Proponents of the project argue it would dismantle what they view as a vast, unaccountable, and mostly liberal government bureaucracy. The project also seeks to infuse the government and society with conservative Christian values. Critics have characterized Project 2025 as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist plan to steer the U.S. toward autocracy. Legal experts have said it would undermine the rule of law, separation of powers, separation of church and state, and civil liberties. Project 2025 envisions widespread changes to economic and social policies and the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Commerce, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuels. The blueprint seeks to institute tax cuts, but its writers disagree on protectionism. It recommends abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be transferred or terminated. Funding for climate research would be cut, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be made less independent, stopped from funding research with embryonic stem cells or using quotas to promote equal participation by women. The project seeks to cut Medicare and Medicaid, and urges the government to explicitly reject abortion as health care. The project seeks to eliminate coverage of emergency contraception and enforce the Comstock Act to prosecute those who send and receive contraceptives and abortion pills. It proposes criminalizing pornography, removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and affirmative action by having the DOJ prosecute "anti-white racism". The Project recommends the arrest, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants. It proposes deploying the military for domestic law enforcement. It promotes capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of those sentences. It hopes to undo "[al]most everything implemented" by the Biden Administration. Although Project 2025 cannot legally promote a presidential candidate without endangering its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, many contributors are associated with Trump and his campaign. The Heritage Foundation employs many people closely aligned with Trump, including members of his 2017–2021 administration, and coordinates the initiative with conservative groups run by Trump allies. Trump campaign officials have had regular contact with Project 2025, and told Politico in 2023 that the project aligned well with their Agenda 47 program, though they have said that the project does not speak for Trump or his campaign. The project's controversial proposals led Trump and his campaign to distance themselves from the project in 2024—saying he knows "nothing about it" and calling unspecified parts of it "ridiculous and abysmal". Some critics have dismissed Trump's claims, pointing to various people close to Trump who helped draft the project, his endorsement of the effort in 2022, the many contributors who are expected to get leadership roles in a future Trump administration, and the 300 times Trump is mentioned in the plans.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Apunaja

Published: Mar 19, 2024

I just watched this clip of Don Lemon interviewing Elon Musk, where Lemon pushed back on Musk’s claims of DEI policies impacting the quality of medical care and insisted that there is no evidence that standards are being lowered in medical programs in the pursuit of diversity goals. It was infuriating to watch. The word ‘gaslighting’ repeatedly came to mind.

I don’t know if Lemon genuinely doesn’t know the facts about this issue, or if he is deliberately misrepresenting the inconvenient truth, but as anyone who has been paying attention to this issue can attest, it is indisputable that standards are indeed being lowered, in myriad professional and educational contexts, for the express purpose of increasing the racial diversity of that group’s membership. What makes it hard to believe that Lemon isn’t being disingenuous about this is that in so many of the cases where this is happening, the proponents of the policy openly state that the reason they are changing their standards are in order to increase representation of minorities. Of course, they don’t call it “lowering standards for diversity”. But when you get rid of a testing requirement, or lower the passing grade, or modify the entrance qualifications to deliberately allow lower performing black and Hispanic students entrance, you are by definition lowering standards for the sake of diversity and equity, no matter how you spin it.

It’s high time for the false claim that ‘promoting DEI doesn’t adversely impact standards’ to finally be put to rest. In the interview, Lemon said he looked forward to people providing evidence of the claim, so I’m going to attempt to do that here, to lay out unambiguous evidence of educational and professional standards being compromised for the sake of DEI. I’m going to first focus on the area of medicine, which is what Lemon was specifically talking about, and then I’ll get into many other arenas where we can see this happening.

In a 2022 City Journal article, the esteemed Heather Mac Donald describes a required medical exam being altered (both in its subject matter and its grading) to allow for more students to pass:

At the end of their second year of medical school, students take Step One of the USMLE, which measures knowledge of the body’s anatomical parts, their functioning, and their malfunctioning; topics include biochemistry, physiology, cell biology, pharmacology, and the cardiovascular system. High scores on Step One predict success in a residency; highly sought-after residency programs, such as neurosurgery and radiology, use Step One scores to help select applicants. Black students are not admitted into competitive residencies at the same rate as whites because their average Step One test scores are a standard deviation below those of whites. Step One has already been modified to try to shrink that gap; it now includes non-science components such as “communication and interpersonal skills.” But the standard deviation in scores has persisted. In the world of antiracism, that persistence means only one thing: the test is to blame. …The solution … was obvious: abolish Step One grades. Since January 2022, Step One has been graded on a pass-fail basis.

Further in the article, she explores how med school entrance standards have been adjusted to increase the number of minority students entering even though their grades were far lower:

In 2021, the average score for white applicants on the Medical College Admission Test was in the 71st percentile… The average score for black applicants was in the 35th percentile—a full standard deviation below the average white score. The MCATs have already been redesigned to try to reduce this gap; a quarter of the questions now focus on social issues and psychology. Yet the gap persists. So medical schools use wildly different standards for admitting black and white applicants. From 2013 to 2016, only 8% of white college seniors with below-average undergraduate GPAs and below-average MCAT scores were offered a seat in medical school; less than 6% of Asian college seniors with those qualifications were offered a seat, according to an analysis by economist Mark Perry. Medical schools regarded those below-average scores as all but disqualifying—except when presented by blacks and Hispanics. Over 56% of black college seniors with below-average undergraduate GPAs and below-average MCATs and 31% of Hispanic students with those scores were admitted, making a black student in that range more than seven times as likely as a similarly situated white college senior to be admitted to medical school and more than nine times as likely to be admitted as a similarly situated Asian senior.

Later on she recounts a further example of reducing standards to increase diversity at a top-tier institution:

The University of Pennsylvania medical school guarantees admission to black undergraduates who score a modest 1300 on the SAT (on a 1600-point scale), maintain a 3.6 GPA in college, and complete two summers of internship at the school. The school waives its MCAT requirement for these black students; UPenn’s non-preferred medical students score in the top one percent of all MCAT takers.

The article details many more examples of diversity efforts impacting the quality of the curriculum, admissions, faculty hiring, research funding, accreditation, publishing, and other aspects of the medical education arena. I strongly encourage you to read it in full here.

But where did all these changes stem from? A 2020 Quillette article reveals how these policies were a result of a long-running campaign to increase diversity:

…in 2009 the body that accredits medical schools, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), touched off a parity panic across the med school landscape by issuing stern new guidance on diversity. In order to remain accredited, declared LCME, medical schools “must” have policies and practices in place that “achieve appropriate diversity.” …In the wake of the LCME’s watershed edict, working groups were convened, budget line items were created, and high-profile hires were made to facilitate diversity boosting and community recruitment. A main stumbling block seemed to be minority candidates’ poor performance on gatekeeper exams like the MCATs.

Once the unstoppable force of diversity activism met the immovable object of disparate MCAT scores, activists focused their efforts on reducing the MCAT’s significance and incorporating tests that were not based on cognitively demanding subjects like actual medical knowledge in favor of things like emotional intelligence, empathy, and communication:

The primary selling point of SJTs was thus that they allowed schools to consider factors other than such blind metrics as a straightforward ranking of applicants’ college grades and MCAT performance. The MCATs themselves were revised in 2015 to give meaningful weight to areas of the social sciences.

The amazing thing about all this is how, if you just listen to their own words, these activists are totally open about how they need to lower the standards to increase minority representation. Here’s one such statement from an advocacy group admitting that expecting minority students to meet the same academic standards everyone else is held to holds back diversity:

…a huge obstacle to diversity is that most medical schools have the same criteria for all applicants. To get a medical student population that is representative of the general population requires more than simply accepting applicants of color who have the same grades and MCAT scores as White applicants…

Their solution? Lessen the importance of the MCAT in applications.

While on the topic of medical schools, consider this chart, highlighting the likelihood that students in different racial groups are granted entrance to medical schools, based on their grades. It echoes Mac Donald’s claims above, and indisputably reveals that a low performing student has a much higher chance of getting in when they’re black versus being any other race.

Another way of looking at that same data is in this chart:

This 2023 Newsweek op-ed unambiguously advocates for the MCAT to be abolished as an entrance requirement in order to increase diversity:

A panel representing the American Bar Association (ABA) recently voted to eliminate the LSAT as an admissions requirement for law schools. The main reason for doing this: to increase diversity in law schools. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) should follow the lead of the ABA for medical school admissions by removing the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) as a requirement.

Here’s a similar Washington Post piece proposing that the MCAT be changed to a pass/fail test. Why? In the author’s own words: “This is a crucial step if the medical profession is to diversify its physician ranks.”

There are further examples that could be provided, but I think this suffices to prove Elon’s claim. Copious examples of deliberate efforts to lower standards in medical education for the express purpose of increasing diversity. Mr. Lemon, do you find this evidence sufficient to acknowledge that Elon’s assertion was correct?

But it gets worse. As I said above, the problem of lowering educational and professional standards to increase diversity is not just an issue in the medical field. Campaigns pursuing this agenda are occurring all over society. Mr. Lemon, please bear with me a bit longer and allow me to provide further evidence of just how widespread this phenomenon actually is:

1. In Oregon, the state decided that students don’t need to prove mastery of reading, writing or math to graduate, citing harm to students of color. This a result of a law passed in 2021 which the governor’s office explained as follows:

…suspending the reading, writing and math proficiency requirements while the state develops new graduation standards will benefit “Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.”

2. In order to address "racial disparities" and "inequities" in grading, Portland Public Schools are trying "equitable grading practices" that bar teachers from assigning "zeros" to students who cheat or fail to turn in assignments.

3. In Minnesota, they’ve decided to stop giving F grades in order to “end systemic racism”.

4. In San Diego, because too many minority students were failing compared to white students, the school decided to address the problem not by improving the pedagogy but by… changing how they graded students. “The grading changes are part of a larger effort to combat racism,” they explained.

5. NJ chose to lower the minimum passing score on the state’s high school graduation test. Why? Among other reasons given was this appeal to diversity:

One board member who supported lowering the passing score suggested that it was “unfair” to “Black and Latino students” to require underperforming students to demonstrate a higher level of proficiency in reading and math before graduating.

6. In Arizona, a student dean felt that it would “promote equity” if he stopped grading students essays based on the quality of their writing. (This sounds similar to an effort by a student org that called for ‘Black Linguistic Justice’ and demanded that they not be graded by the standards of ordinary English, what they referred to as ‘white linguistic supremacy’. 🤷‍♂️)

7. Along similar lines, Rutgers decided to deemphasize traditional grammar ‘in solidarity with Black Lives Matter’.

8. It’s not just the US embracing this insanity. In the UK, instructors at Hull University were told to overlook students’ grammatical errors as part of an “inclusive marking policy”. And for a similar reason, the University of the Arts in London has told its staff to ‘actively accept spelling, grammar or other language mistakes that do not significantly impede communication’.

9. Please read this detailed article at The Free Press about the new California math initiative that sacrifices mathematical education for diversity goals. This new framework seems primarily motivated by concerns that too many students are sorted into different math tracks based on their natural abilities, which leads some to take calculus by their senior year of high school while a disproportionate number of black and Latino kids don't make it past basic algebra. So their solution is to prohibit any sorting until high school, keeping gifted kids in the same classrooms as their less mathematically inclined peers until at least grade nine.

10, Those same lowered math standards are being implemented in Cambridge, MA:

Udengaard is one of dozens of parents who recently have publicly voiced frustration with a years-old decision made by Cambridge to remove advanced math classes in grades six to eight. The district’s aim was to reduce disparities between low-income children of color, who weren’t often represented in such courses, and their more affluent peers.

11. In order to advance their DEI agenda, the creators of the bar exam are changing the famously difficult tests that lawyers have to pass before they are allowed to practice. How are they doing so? In their own words (emphasis added):

…we take seriously the need to work toward greater equity in all that we do as a testing organization, and we actively work to eliminate any aspects of our exams that could contribute to performance disparities among different groups.

A WSJ article investigating these changes reports:

Based on the diversity workshop at the NCBE conference, it means putting considerable emphasis on examinees’ race, sex, gender identity, nationality and other identity-based characteristics. The idea seems to be that any differences in group outcomes must be eliminated—even if the only way to achieve this goal is to water down the test. On top of all that, an American Civil Liberties Union representative provided conference attendees with a lecture on criminal-justice reform in which he argued that states should minimize or overlook would-be lawyers’ convictions for various criminal offenses in deciding whether to admit them to the bar.

12. Of course, the obvious question presents itself: why bother changing the bar exam to allow more people to pass it if you can just get rid of it entirely? And that’s exactly what some states are doing. Just a few days ago, the State of Washington decided to no longer require lawyers to pass the bar exam. Why? It was hampering diversity.

The Bar Licensure Task Force found that the traditional exam “disproportionally and unnecessarily blocks” marginalized groups from becoming practicing attorneys and is “at best minimally effective” for ensuring competency.

13. The Washington State decision follows in the footsteps of Oregon, which stopped requiring the bar exam last year.

14. Taking the bar happens at the end of a law student’s journey. What about at the beginning, when they are taking the LSAT? No worries, diversity initiatives are lowering the bar there too! The American Bar Association voted in 2022 to stop requiring the LSAT for admission to law school. Why?

“In the grand scheme of things, folks of color perform less well on the LSAT than not, and for that reason, I think we are headed in the right direction,” Leo Martinez, an ABA council member and dean emeritus at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, said at the meeting.

15. In related legal arenas, Delaware chose to improve the diversity of its legal community by instituting a few changes of its own. Some of the changes, “which ultimately aim to also increase the number of Black and Latino judges”, include lowering the passing grade, halving the number of essays, and other competency requirements being relaxed.

16. Similar changes have happened in California, for the explicitly stated reason of increasing diversity:The California Supreme Court, which oversees the state bar, agreed to lower the passing score for the exam, a victory for law school deans who have long hoped the change would raise the number of Black and Latino people practicing law.

17. A 2015 NY Times headline: Study Cites Lower Standards in Law School Admissions. Why are they lowering standards? Answer: “…they need flexibility in selecting students to assure a diverse population of lawyers.”

18. Just like with med schools, law school acceptance rates are biased towards minorities. An analysis of admissions data data revealed that being from an under represented minority group (URM) boosted one’s chance of acceptance to a law school quite dramatically:

Almost every school we cover shows an increased chance of admission to URM applicants, with higher boosts for higher-tiered schools….As you can see in Table 1a, law schools typically give a 7% boost to URM applicants. In other words, a URM applicant who is exactly equal to a non-URM candidate, including all other factors we control for, is 7% more likely to be admitted to any law school than a non-URM equivalent. This number is a whopping 498% in the Top 14, 126% in the Top 25, and 52% in the Top 50 law schools.

Just as is happening in the legal and medical arenas, the practice of increasing minority numbers by eliminating entrance exams that ensure professional competency is happening in other professions too. Some examples of that:

19. In Washington, DC, officials considered getting rid of their social work exam over concerns that it failed too many people of color.

20. A required test for math teacher certification in Ontario showed significant racial disparities in the success rates of those taking it. As a result of the disparity a court ruled it unconstitutional and teachers were no longer required to take it. (The ruling has since been overturned.)

21. A similar case occurred in NY whereby prospective teachers had to take an Academic Literacy Skills Test. But because disproportionate numbers of black and Hispanic applicants failed it, the test was eliminated.

22. In a similar lawsuit, NYC had to pay out $1.8 billion to former teachers who failed a certification test. Why? The test was deemed racially biased since a disproportionate number of the failures came from minority teachers.

23. In 2015 the FDNY was pressured to modify its certification requirements to increase gender diversity, and for the first time ever passed a woman who failed a physical test that until then all fire-fighter applicants needed to pass.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro told a City Council hearing on the FDNY’s efforts to recruit women that he had changed FST requirements to lower obstacles.

24. A few months ago, a fascinating article appeared on this very platform exposing how the FAA deliberately lowered the testing requirements of flight controllers for the express purpose of increasing diversity. The consequences for the industry were, unsurprisingly, appalling:

A report on FAA hiring issues found that 70% of CTI administrators agreed that the changes in the process had led to a negative effect on the air traffic control infrastructure. One respondent stated their "numbers [had] been devastated," and the majority agreed that it would severely impact the health of their own programs.

25. Of course, a well-known area where standards have been lowered in the pursuit of DEI is in how colleges have stopped requiring applicants to have taken the SAT. I can’t begin to list all the colleges that have dropped the SAT entrance requirements in the name of equity (although many hid the decision behind the excuse of Covid), but according to this list, it’s over a thousand schools. A few prominent names that instituted the policy are Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, UCLA, and SUNY. (However, in recent months, a few of those institutions have reversed the policy and now require it again.)

26. Among all the many cases where destructive DEI policies are being implemented, possibly the most disturbing arena of all is when actually talented and capable students are purposefully denied opportunities that can help them excel. An example of this in action is the numerous school districts that have chosen to remove “Gifted and Honors” classes for the stated reason of increasing equity. Some examples:

Culver City, CA:

Troy, MI

Barrington, RI

New York and this too

Seattle, WA

Vancouver, Canada

27. If they’re not eliminating the Honors programs entirely, many schools are simply dropping the entrance requirements so that they are open to anyone, thereby diluting their very purpose. Some places this has already happened:

San Francisco

Boston, MA

Montgomery County, MD

New York City

Fairfax, VA

The result of these admission changes? Massive increases in students failing. For example:

…at the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, just 50% of seventh graders met or exceeded expectations in math, down from 85% as recently as 2019. Nor was the Boston Latin School, the crown jewel of the system, immune: Just 70% of seventh graders either met or exceeded expectations in math, down from 94% three years ago.

28. Even the military is affected by demands to lower standards to increase diversity (albeit gender diversity, not racial). The Army actually removed a physical test because not enough women were passing it:

On Monday, the Army ended its requirement that soldiers do at least one leg tuck — where they hang from a bar and pull their knees up near their shoulders — as part of the new physical fitness test, as it became clear that many troops, particularly women, were unable to do it.

29. Speaking of gender diversity, Oxford University decided that because not enough women were passing their math and computer science examinations, they would add more time to the exam to help them. (Apparently, it didn’t even help.)

30. Oxford also decided to let a History test be taken at home in order to increase the number of women passing.

31. And because too many men were getting top grades in a classics course over the women, Oxford also decided they had to overhaul the entire course in order to bridge the gender gap.

32. Across the globe in Australia, the University of Technology Sydney chose to boost their gender diversity by allowing female students to enter its engineering and construction courses with lower grades than the males.

33. Back in 2016, a doctoral student at the University of North Dakota actually published a paper suggesting that STEM courses be made more inclusive of women by making then “less competitive,” so maybe that’s where the above universities got their inspiration from?

34. The lowering of educational standards for the sake of diversity is happening in arts education too. Consider how auditions were scrapped at a Brooklyn performing arts school in favor of a lottery. Why? Diversity!

The Department of Education says standards like auditions — or test scores and grades at other schools — block access for underprivileged kids, and the new policy will diversify student bodies across the district.

The above examples are just a sampling of the many instances of the pernicious trend of DEI deliberately compromising the standards of performance to advance its agenda. Public figures and pundits like Don Lemon need to stop repeating this lie that there is no downside to promoting these policies. On the contrary, it’s imperative that everyone recognize how these Harrison Bergeron-like policies directly lead to a deterioration of our educational outcomes, an undermining of our scientific, technological and medical progress, a diminishing of our professional competencies, and a fraying of our societal cohesion.

It’s time for DEI to DIE.

==

Don 🍋 is astonishingly dumb.

[beardedmrbean]

A government agency created five decades ago to boost the fortunes of minority-owned businesses discriminated against whites and must now serve all business owners, regardless of race, a federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday.

Siding with white business owners who sued the Minority Business Development Agency for discrimination, Judge Mark T. Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas said the agency’s mission to help disadvantaged businesses owned by Blacks, Hispanics and other racial and ethnic groups gain access to capital and contracts violates the rights of all Americans to receive equal protection under the constitution.

“If courts mean what they say when they ascribe supreme importance to constitutional rights, the federal government may not flagrantly violate such rights with impunity. The MBDA has done so for years. Time’s up,” Pittman, who was named to the federal bench by President Trump, wrote in a 93-page decision.

Pittman directed the Nixon-era agency to overhaul its programs in a potential blow to other government efforts that cater to historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups.

The ruling marks a major development in the broader legal skirmish over diversity, equity and inclusion that is likely to fuel a re-energized conservative movement intent on abolishing affirmative action in the public and private sectors. 

Last summer’s Supreme Court decision on race-conscious college admissions has increased scrutiny of government programs that operate based on a presumption of social or economic disadvantage.

Conservative activists have peppered organizations with lawsuits claiming that programs to help Black Americans and other marginalized groups discriminate against white people. 

In a statement proclaiming “DEI’s days are numbered,” Dan Lennington, an attorney with Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, the public interest law firm that sued MBDA, hailed the decision as a “historic victory for equality in America.”

“No longer can a federal agency cater only to certain races and not others,” Lennington said. “The MBDA is now open to all Americans.”

The MBDA, which is part of the Commerce Department, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Justice Department lawyers who represented the agency declined to comment. They argued in court filings that the agency’s services are available to any socially or economically disadvantaged business owner. They also pointed to decades of evidence showing that certain groups suffered – and continue to suffer – social and economic disadvantages that stunt “their ability to participate in America’s free enterprise system.”

Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum, said the court’s decision acknowledged this disadvantage.

"Despite this recognition, the court somehow argues that a program created to remedy this discrimination must be dismantled. That makes no sense,” David said in a statement. 

What’s more, David said the ruling is limited to one federal agency.

“We can expect right-wing activists to conflate the issue and confuse people into thinking it applies to any public or private program that fights discrimination, but that is not the case," he said.

Established in 1969 by President Richard Nixon to address discrimination in the business world, the MBDA runs centers across the country to help minority owned businesses secure funding and government contracts. The Biden administration made the agency permanent in 2021. 

Three small business owners sued MBDA in March, alleging they were turned away because of their race. “The American dream should be afforded to all Americans regardless of skin color or cultural background. But what we have is a federal government picking winners and losers based on wokeism – enough is enough,” one of the plaintiffs, Matthew Piper, said at the time.

National Urban League president Marc Morial urged the federal government to appeal the decision.

"The work of the MBDA to concentrate on the growth of businesses that remain substantially locked out of the mainstream of the American economy is needed and necessary," Morial said.

[sissa-arrows]

is there anything we should know about the “barbary slave trade”? am i right in thinking the western nations went to war twice over white slavery and ended it before they abolished atlntic african slave trade?? Also what abought Tamazight/ Amazigh nationalism? Sorry if this is too much

TLDR:

Barbary slave trade did exist it was different from the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism actually didn’t happen to stop it. They used it as an excuse long after because it sounded better than the truth.

The majority of what people identify as Amazigh nationalism is actually not nationalism but legitimate demands that are nothing more than simple rights. The rest is complete bullshit that often comes from diaspora kids in Europe (especially France) who are filled with internalized racism and have an identity crisis.

More details below the cut it’s long beware 😂

First thing first when one think about slavery the first thing that comes to mind is the transatlantic slave trade so I will start by explaining how the Barbary slave trade was DIFFERENT. Different does not mean good it means different.

The Barbary slave trade wasn’t based on race and the majority (not all) of the slaves were sailors whose ship had been seized by the Barbary pirates. The pirates would then decide if it was a better option to sell the prisoner or to ask for a ransom and go ahead with said better option. The Ottoman Empire had a rule forbidding taking a fellow Muslim as a slave, the « Barbary coast » aka the North African coast was part of/allied with the Ottoman Empire depending on the time and region so the pirates respected that rule. Those who reverted or those who were already Muslims were automatically freed. It was approved by the local rulers for two reasons they didn’t mind and the pirates were not people you should anger they would totally organize coup against the rulers they disliked.

Now the West especially France LOVES to pretend the colonization of Algeria happened to stop the Barbary pirates to take white slaves. This is a fucking lie. They colonized Algeria for two reasons first and main one is that they owed a ton of money to Algeria. During the Egyptian campaign Napoleon’s troops ended up lacking in food/wheat at the same time the south of France was lacking in food/wheat so bringing the wheat from France wasn’t an option. Algeria was the granary of Africa so Napoleon asked for some wheat Algeria was like « okay we can sell you wheat » Napoleon was like « meeeeeh I don’t have the money right right now give me a loan » Algeria said no. A family in Algeria decided to not mind their business and get into it. Algeria accepted to give the loan. 29 years later Algeria still didn’t have the money. France refused to pay saying that the debt was contracted by Napoleon not the current king (Charles X) anyway so why should he pay. It wasn’t even the same regime… France sent a consul with the order to NOT accept any deal. The Dey of Algeria got angry and he gave a slap with his fan to the consul (he used a fucking feather fan meant to fan away flies… even with ALL his strength it wouldn’t have been painful). France takes it as an opportunity to call it a declaration of war and attack Algeria. The second reason is that Charles X was losing power he needed a win on top of it the British empire wasn’t doing that bad so Charles X thought Algeria could be that win.

So they didn’t even colonize North Africa to stop the Barbary slave trade. It’s just that later they figured it sounded better to say it was to stop slavery than to admit it was about trying to save a dying reign and to avoid paying a debt.

I’m mentioning specifically Algeria and France because that’s what I know best AND because to my knowledge only France tried to justify colonialism with that argument and I know for sure it’s bullshit. It’s common knowledge that it started with the « coup d’éventail » but somehow France managed to rebrand it as a fight against slavery because it sounds better.

As for Amazigh nationalism. I’m an Arabized Algerian. I do have an Amazigh culture but it’s mixed and Arabized. So I am not the best to answer. That being said there’s two types of « Amazigh nationalism ».

The first one is not even nationalism in my opinion but it’s often wrongly identified as such. It’s not really Amazigh nationalism because their demands are just legitimate obvious stuff I don’t call that nationalism and because Imazighen are composed of multiple tribes with similarities and differences. While people often support each other their demand are specific and different. This first group is the more common the ones that just want to be recognized as such they don’t want to be Arabized they acknowledge that the ones who have been Arabized are not actual Arab colonizers. From what I saw and know those are the majority. I 100% support them. I’m friend with many of them some are my family members. I learned a lot with them. Honestly regardless of my personal experience and opinion what they are asking is perfectly normal and I would be a fucking bitch if I denied that it wasn’t nothing more than a simple right. Having the option to fill paperwork in their language, having classes in said language… it’s totally legitimate.

Then there’s the second category. Those are a small minority but oh boy how loud they are. They often live in France. They know nothing about their history and culture they just spit bullshit out of nowhere to calm their identity crisis and internalized racism. Very often the first category of Amazigh nationalists joke and ask them « do your parents even know that your Amazigh? » because they often come from Arabized family.

Basically France labels all North Africans as Arabs and France hates Arabs. So when they have an identity crisis the non Arabized North Africans resent that forced Arabization imposed by France and they resent the Arabized because he is either an Arab colonizers or he is a traitor who labels himself as Arabs and is the reason why they get labeled as Arabs themselves and get hated because of it. The more common one in this second category is the one who is Arabized he internalized all that racism and then one day he realized his ancestors were most likely not Arabs and he ran with it. They mix everything their parents don’t even know their child is amazigh. They be like « Us Imazighen people do X » and it’s something very specific from one tribe but if you have the audacity to say « hey just a heads up it’s not all Imazighen who do that it’s only these tribes » they feel insulted and say you misunderstood them and start being super condescending. Nobody likes them and they are only popular in far right western space who want to use them to absolve themselves of colonialism and to destabilize North African countries and in white liberal spaces who think they are representative of their region and will then turn around and attack OTHER NORTH AFRICANS who disagree…

Anyway it’s long and I’m rambling at this point. So I’ll stop I don’t even know if I answered your questions.

[whatbigotspost]

God I just feel exhausted today by encountering stuff that's just wrong by people who think they are setting the record straight.

As I've mentioned on and off over the years, I work at a nonprofit that primarily serves girls. We've literally always had the most inclusive approach by what that means, basically, "if you want to be served, we want to work with you."

Lately, our staff has gotten tied up in overly focusing on labels and there's a not insubstantial portion of the group who truly, fully believe that people cannot identify with BOTH being girls and ALSO being nonbinary and it's driving me up the fucking wall. Like, they really are thinking, "there's no longer TWO BOXES for gender there are THREE BOXES" and they're patting themselves on the back, whereas I am begging everyone to just burn the fucking boxes. Abolish boxes. Be box free. Anyway, today I heard it said AGAIN that someone cannot be both a woman AND also be something outside of womanness too, and I want to set my hair on fire in protest because I. am. literally. the. person. they. say. doesn't. exist. But they're apparently more interested in being "right" based of some 101 DEI training they went to than they are listening to people who live outside the binary.

And then there's the Thinx post of mine that blew up.

Literally from the moment I published the first version of the post, I regretted sampling the info from tweets that are inflammatory and scare style in tone. The tweets I chose were where I genuinely for the first time learned of the situation and as I always do, I gave credit to where I learned the thing. Some of the early comments I got rightfully pointed out how the original material implies that people are currently being harmed, physically, by the toxic materials in Thinx, when really the case is about the false advertising claims. I should have better clarified that there are not reports of Thinx damaging anyone's body……….yet, from the get-go. THAT SAID, the original tweets I posted in no way claim that anyone was harmed... but they DO SAY that if you think you may be harmed, don't take the class action settlement money so that you can sue them later if you need to. Which is still good advice, in my view.

What I don't regret at all was raising the alarm that Thinx doesn't have your best interests in mind as much as you may assume from their advertising and brand. I stand firm in my unshakeable belief that people have a right to know what's in the materials they put up close to their fucking genitals and that companies will happily lie to you about that kind of thing if it drives their profits. Now that folks are calling that post "blatant misinformation" I gotta just say for a moment: No. It's not. Read it again. While it is inflammatory, there is not actually ANY false information in that post. The closest it gets is by encouraging people to stop wearing their Thinx, which is an opinion that OP held, based on real information the case reveals. Other than that is says: Thinx has materials in it that are toxic that they previously did not reveal. IF you think you've been harmed, don't take the settlement money.

That's it. So YEAH feeling quite a bit frazzled today by bumping into some self-righteous views of "truth" that are actually false in and of themselves so just had to vent that shit.

Turning off reblogging on this because I only feel like sending this complaint to my followers 😂 But I always appreciate a ❤ as a sign of support for my whiny rants!

[ausetkmt]

The Cut: Florida Wants to Teach Kids That Slavery Was Good

It’s a hell of a time to be a teacher in Florida. Amid an alarming sea of Republican-backed changes to school curriculums in the state, its board of education has voted unanimously to approve new standards for African American history classes in public schools. Going forward, middle-schoolers will explore “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit” as one part of the syllabus.

Another update the board considered crucial: High-school lessons about anti-Black violence throughout the 20th century — examples of which include the Atlanta race massacre, the Tulsa massacre, the Rosewood massacre, and the 1920 Ocoee massacre — will apparently cover “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” The board claimed its retelling would ensure “the darkest parts of our history are addressed,” but in every case, these incidents involved white mobs attacking Black communities. The Ocoee massacre, for example, is considered the deadliest instance of Election Day violence in U.S. history, one Florida schools have only been required to teach to students since 2020. It saw white supremacists slaughter an estimated 35 Black people, as well as burn down some 22 homes and multiple churches, in an effort to keep Black Ocoee residents from voting. Speaking at the board meeting,state senator Geraldine Thompson — who, per the Washington Post, helped install the massacre on state lesson plans to begin with — pointed out that the new framing “suggests that the massacre was sparked by violence from African Americans” and thereby blames its victims.

At the same time, the standards are consistent with Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s ongoing crusade against factually accurate Black history education in schools. Last year, he introduced a “Stop WOKE Act” that would prevent schools, universities, and private businesses from acknowledging topics, including structural racism and privilege, that may provoke “guilt, anguish, or any form of psychological distress” in some (read: white) students. A federal judge swiftly struck down the law as a violation of the First Amendment, but DeSantis appears to be attempting a comeback, while several state universities have reportedly already modified their critical race theory courses.

In January, DeSantis rejected a request from the College Board to introduce a new AP African American History Studies course, claiming that a litany of curriculum points, including reparations and intersectionality, went against state law. He also took issue with the program’s inclusion of the phrase “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” in bell hooks’s writing, its mentionof “Black Queer Studies” as a concept, and its support for “ending the war on Black trans, queer, gender nonconforming, and intersex people.” In May, he passed legislation banning gender studies and critical race theory degrees and prohibiting Florida universities from using federal or state funds for DEI programs. Last month, he claimed on Fox News that he plans to abolish the U.S. Department of Education if elected president.

In the wake of this latest effort to whitewash American history, dozens of lawmakers, activists, and educators spoke out against the new board of education guidelines. The state’s teachers union called the news “a big step backward,” asking in a statement, “How can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don’t have a full, honest picture of where we’ve come from?” NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson added, “Today’s actions by the Florida state government are an attempt to bring our country back to a 19th-century America where Black life was not valued, nor our rights protected.” Florida Wants to Teach Kids That Slavery Was Good

[cartermagazine]

Today We Honor Oluale Kossola, Renamed Cudjo Lewis Zora Neale Hurston tells the story of Cudjo Lewis, who was born Oluale Kossola in what is now the West African country of Benin in her book “Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.” A member of the Yoruba people, he was only 19 years old when members of the neighboring Dahomian tribe invaded his village, captured him along with others, and marched them to the coast. There, he and about 120 others were sold into slavery, after the “Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves" took effect in 1808 slavery was abolished, and crammed onto the Clotilda, the “last” slave ship to reach the continental United States. The Clotilda brought its captives to Alabama in 1860, just a year before the outbreak of the Civil War. Even though slavery was legal at that time in the U.S., the international slave trade was not, and hadn’t been for over 50 years. Along with many European nations, the U.S. had outlawed the practice in 1808. After being abducted from his home, Lewis was forced onto a ship with strangers. The abductees spent several months together during the treacherous passage to the United States, but were then separated in Alabama to go to different owners. “We very sorry to be parted from one ’nother,” Lewis told Hurston. “We seventy days cross de water from de Affica soil, and now dey part us from one ’nother.” “Derefore we cry. Our grief so heavy look lak we cain stand it. I think maybe I die in my sleep when I dream about my mama.” “We doan know why we be bring ’way from our country to work lak dis,” he told Hurston. “Everybody lookee at us strange. We want to talk wid de udder colored folkses but dey doan know whut we say.” Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered in April 1865, Lewis says that a group of Union soldiers stopped by a boat on which he and other enslaved people were working and told them they were free. He and a group of 31 other freepeople saved up money to buy land near Mobile, which they called Africatown. CARTER™️ Magazine carter-mag.com #wherehistoryandhiphopmeet #historyandhiphop365 #cartermagazine #carter #cudjolewis #blackhistorymonth #blackhistory #history #staywoke https://www.instagram.com/p/CkViP5vuxtp/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=